Alinma Bank announced the results for the first quarter of fiscal year 2020. Despite the 15% increase in income from the core business of Financing & Investments, the net income declined to SR370 million due to the higher provision for credit losses and the downward revaluation of investments compared to the corresponding quarter of 2019. Speaking about the financial results for the quarter, Abdulmohsen Al-Fares, CEO of Alinma Bank, said that the Q1 banking activities represented growth in all major banking activities compared with the similar quarter last year. He went on to detail the bank's performance as follows: • Assets rose to SR138,021 million compared to SR121,794 million for the same period of the previous year, an increase of 13%. • Net income from financing and investment activities amounted to SR1,121 million, compared to SR976 million for the same quarter of the previous year, an increase of 15%. • The financing portfolio amounted to SR97,784 million as of March 31, 2020, compared to SR85,877 million at the same time of the previous year, an increase of 14%. • Customer deposits amounted to SR103,874 million, compared to SR92,261 million at the same time of the previous year, an increase of 13%. Al-Fares also pointed that the total operating income during the first quarter of the current year 2020 amounted to SR1,268 million compared to SR1,290 million for the similar quarter last year showing a decrease of 2% due to downward revaluation of investment, and that the Bank has increased its provisions for the credit portfolio as part of the bank's efforts for strengthening its financial position, and accordingly this has affected the net profit growth pace compared to the prior periods. With regard to operational aspects, Alinma Bank has added many distinguished banking products and services and invested in the training and qualifying its employees, in addition to enhancing its digital services and products provided to its partners, and nowadays, thankfully the Alinma products are provided with a high efficiency to all sectors, whether for the individual sector, SME or the Corporate sector, which has contributed to the growth of the partner base as well as the growth of the financing portfolios, deposits and bank assets which have achieved new records in the Alinma history. Alinma nowadays has a distinguished network branches spread across the Kingdom, and provides modern and multiple electronic services that allow partners to communicate with their accounts and carry out banking operations around the clock through self-banking services. — SG
